Dating Maze #234 - Marriage Avoidance Syndrome

She's not willing to join her many friends that are getting hitched. What to do?

I'm in my mid-20s without a strong desire for marriage. On one hand, I'm open and willing to date. But on the other hand, I don't believe I'll ever be ready for marriage. This issue is becoming more and more difficult as my friends and even younger siblings become engaged and married.

Should I still be dating? Or should I simply call quits and figure out how to lead a productive life on my own? What if I find myself ready for marriage, say 10 years down the line, and I date and date and date... then turn 60 and I'm still single! Does that indicate that I was supposed to stay single from the start?

I really need to get some clarity on this, because it's beginning to drive me crazy.

Claire

Dear Claire,

We live in a world in which many people would react to your letter by saying, "Of course she doesn't want to get married. She's not even 30! Contemporary culture tells us that marriage is just another lifestyle choice. In addition, much of contemporary culture views marriage in terms of "how happy is it going to make me," instead of "how can another person and I give to each other and build a rich life together."

But Judaism regards marriage and building a family as a central focus of life, and thus twenty-something is definitively not too early to start.

Yet still, many people don't feel they are ready for marriage, even though they may be of "marriageable age." This may be because they want:

a better idea of who they are, or the direction they want their lives to take

time to clarify what they expect from marriage and what they seek in a marriage partner

to pursue a short-term goal that requires a focus they couldn't maintain if they were dating or married

time to mature and individuate from their parents

These people are right: They need to resolve all of these issues in order to be ready to date for marriage. And most of them are able to make a concerted effort to address these issues and be ready for marriage within a reasonable amount of time.

However, when someone describes a vague uncertainty about wanting to get married, or concern that they may never be ready for marriage, our experience has shown that there's more involved than simply needing time for growth, introspection and clarification. Usually, there are one or more unresolved issues that block the desire to get married, and these issues are usually related to something that happened earlier in life that the person hasn't been able to work through.

In your case, it will very helpful to discover what is blocking you from wanting to get married. Because many people are able to learn a great deal about issues such as these through writing, we suggest that you set aside some quiet time for yourself and write down all of the reasons why you believe you might not want to get married, are afraid of marriage, or are not ready for marriage. Write down all of your thoughts, even the ones you're afraid to admit to yourself or to other people. Save your list, and wait another day or so to review it.

The ideas people come up with when they perform this exercise range from seemingly innocuous to traumatic. Some of the more common concerns we've seen are:

My parents had a terrible marriage. I don't know how married people are supposed to relate to each other, and I'm afraid I'll make the same mistakes as my parents.

Someone very important to me betrayed my trust. I don't know if I will ever be able to trust anyone, and I don't want to be betrayed again.

I'm ashamed of the way I look. I don't believe anyone will ever accept my appearance, and I can't bear to be rejected by someone I care about.

I'm terrified/repulsed by the idea of physical intimacy with anyone. (This is sometimes expressed by victims of sexual abuse.)

I'm afraid of having children and/or afraid I can never be a good parent.

I had so much responsibility growing up in my home that I don't want to be trapped in the same life now that I am an adult.

My friends have gotten divorced and I'm afraid that if I get married I also will face that problem.

I was often teased or ridiculed by others and I can't imagine anyone ever wanting me.

I'm overwhelmed when I hear how many responsibilities married people have. I don't think I can handle them.

I'm afraid I will be trapped into a lifestyle I don't want.

I don't have a strong sense of myself, and I don't know if I ever will.

Part two of this exercise involves examining each of the reasons you listed and figuring out the different ways you can deal with it. Addressing each issue may take time and research, but it takes you one step closer to your goal of discovering and working through what's blocking you.

So, for example, if one of the items on your list is your fear of repeating your parents' dysfunctional patterns of relating to each other, learn what people from similar homes have done to be able to relate to their spouses in a healthier way. That could include identifying strong married couples you know and observing how they interact with each other. It could include reading books on marriage and enrolling in a workshop on marriage skills, conflict resolution, or anger management. It could include talking to a couples' therapist for ideas about how to acquire the skills that can help you have a good relationship with the person you eventually marry.

Your ultimate goal is to be able to address each of these issues so that they won't block you from moving forward in your life. Please don't give up if you find that something is too painful for you to handle on your own, or too frightening to address. In any of these cases, you can find a capable therapist who can help you work through the issues.

We can understand resistance to the idea of discovering what that baggage is. Someone who has built up a lot of protective layers as a coping mechanism -- and feels that they are functioning pretty well in spite of their baggage -- may not like the idea of disturbing those layers. They know it will take time and energy and force them to deal with painful issues that they were "handling" very well when they were buried.

Until you feel that you are ready to get married if you meet the right person, we recommend that you not date. Many men you would date will be marriage-oriented, and it isn't fair to date someone if you don't share that goal. It also will hurt you in the long run, by both jading you and by possibly giving you a "reputation" of being hard to please that may haunt you when you are ready for marriage.

Another thing that will help you during this time: look to find fulfillment in other areas of life. Most single people who are actively looking for marriage partners also manage to have fulfilling careers, hobbies, friendships and community involvement. Life shouldn't stop because you aren't married. However, it's important to make significant room in your life to pursue that very important goal.

Finally, you asked an existential question that we can't answer. Why are so many people who want to get married having trouble finding the right person? This question plagues us every day. In the past, people faced starvation, disease, pogroms... but finding the right spouse wasn't an issue for most of them. Today, compared to the past, we are rich, healthy, and relatively safe, but the dating maze is hard for many of us. We can only speculate why the singles' crisis persists, but in any event it is clearly one of this generation's greatest spiritual challenges.

Featured at Aish.com:

About the Author

Questions for Rosie & Sherry can be sent to datingmaze@aish.com. Due to the large volume of questions received, they are unable to answer each one.

Rosie Einhorn (a psychotherapist) and Sherry Zimmerman (a psychotherapist and former family lawyer) are the authors of the newly-released book, Dating Smart – Navigating the Path to Marriage, published by Menucha Publishers. They are the founders of Sasson V'Simcha (www.jewishdatingandmarriage.com), a non- profit organization that provides programs and services in North America, Israel, and Europe to help Jewish singles and the people who care about them.

The opinions expressed in the comment section are the personal views of the commenters. Comments are moderated, so please keep it civil.

Visitor Comments: 10

(10)
SusanE,
July 13, 2010 7:11 PM

As Always-----On the other Hand

Rosie and Sherry are so insightful and diplomatic and generous with their knowledge and advice. With the tiny amount of information most people reveal in the original questions, R&S must cover all imagined situations and they do it well. -------------------- I am a firm believer that most of us know ourselves very well. In this letter from Claire, she states that she doubts she will ever be ready for marriage. In her mid- 20's and never having the feeling to be forever close to any young man she knew, I believe her statement that she doesn't want to be married. She surely has been in the company of other young men and women since she was 16. It's possible that those feelings of being with a man are not there. -------------------------------------------------------
When we casually date, we can keep dating a person as long as we are comfortable, we can control the amount of closeness, and we can quit seeing that person anytime we want. When you marry, you are together 24/7 with your husband and intimacy is required. There are many women who don't have those feelings of closeness toward men.

(9)
Anonymous,
July 8, 2007 2:37 PM

People are too fearful to marry these days with

the high rate of divorce, and I don't blame people for feeling this way at all. The key is not to the fear paralyze you, but to teach you what to look for in a shidduch.

(8)
Anonymous,
June 26, 2007 3:32 PM

Continue clarification

I'm sorry if I misundestood you. I know not all with Aspergers can or should be married. I agree that we are too hung up on money, looks and yichus-we expect perfection. I'm sorry it is difficult for you.

(7)
Shiri,
June 26, 2007 8:33 AM

Men =/= Women

Miriam, since in shidduch situation, men are in greater demand than women, your Aspeger's rules you out, and Anonymous' husband does not. I hope I didn't offend you. Overweight, diseased, older, smoking men get routinely matched with younger healthy goodlooking women. It's a market thing, sorry. I am 30 y o in excellent shape, and got recently introduced to 50 (fifty) y o with beer belly. I was the only one shocked.

(6)
Miriam,
June 26, 2007 3:13 AM

Clarification

Not true! Your husband is not like me or he would not be married. You misunderstand me. I said everyone is different. Some people with Aspergers and past abuse can get married and some can't. I'm glad your husband was honest with you about his condition. He did the right thing. I'm glad to see that there are some honest people around. It is good that your parents were able to support your brother to marry until he finished university, but not all parents are able to do this. Marriage is definatley good and a very important mitzvah for those who are able to do this. My doctor says I might possibly be able to marry if I marry someone who also has Asperger's, but nobody seems to know anyone with Asperger's. I did see someone for a while who had Asperger's but he was much less suitable for marriage than I am. I had to stop shiddukhim because all the rejections were affecting my health. I just find everyone is hung up on Yikhus & money & they want someone who is in perfect health. I live in a country with a small Jewish population which only adds to the problem.

(5)
Anonymous,
June 25, 2007 8:56 PM

Great article

Great article and right on the money. Surviors of abuse can get therapy and work through their issues. I'm not saying that it is easy to, but doable. I also disagree with Miriam completely. My husband is just like her (Aspergers) and we have been married two years and have a six-month-old son. He was very up front about it before we got engaged. To the grandmother, yes, 18 is very young to get married but some are mature at 18 or 19. People should not let careers stand in the way of getting married or put off marraige in pusuit of a career. My brother got married between his second and third years of law school with my parents' and his wife's help.

(4)
Anonymous,
June 25, 2007 9:28 AM

excellent article

I thought this was one of the authors' best-articulated articles to date (no pun intended). Also, I completely disagree with comments from the two previous posts. Any panic felt by girls is of their own making; they can choose to act differently, with self esteem and confidence, and when they do their bashert will probably appear. To the first person, I would say that until you put some humanity into your comments, you will continue to be critical and bitter. Jewish family life is not a convoluted corporate legal brief. Get a life!

My children married young - and happily. We simply refused to fall victim to the "shtick" surrounding the current shidduch scene and concentrated on being ourselves, not trying to meet false expectations, and those are the types of shidduchim we found for our children - NORMAL, nice people with normal, nice parents. You don't need to "play the game" - you need to daven.

Our children struggled financially without our financial support but a lack of "things" doesn't equate with a lack of a fulfilled life. All my children are in service-related positions (teachers, social workers, kiruv, medical field) and none were prevented by their early marriages from finding fulfilling careers. (Secret: I am their babysitter, which not only saves them money, it brings me joy and allows them to go about their day without a heavy heart, knowing that their children are being cared for by someone who truly loves them). I cannot give from my pocketbook, but I can give from my heart and from my time. Which, in the end, do you think they will remember, impact them, and they will benefit from the most? And by the way, my children are all very different from one another - all Orthodox Jews, but ranging from chareidi-yeshivish to Modern Orthodox. I can't honestly say one is 'better' than the other - they are all wonderful people whose daily avodah is to make a kiddush HaShem, and they are b'h largely successful!

To Sherry and Rosie, you go girrrls!!!

(3)
Miriam,
June 25, 2007 6:46 AM

Not for everyone

Unfortunatley not everyone is able to get married. Some people who have suffered abuse as children (wheteher physical, sexual, emotinal, psychological etc...) are often unable to get married. Sure they should have counselling, but such trauma does not go away over night and can take many years to deal with. Abuse is not something people can just get over and get on with their lives. Sometimes it takes many years for a person to work on their issues. Some people who suffered childhood abuse are able to marry, but not all of them are. Everyone is different and handles trauma differently. There are also people suffering from deppression and Asperger's Syndrome (High Functioning Autism) who are extremely difficult to live with and can not stand to be touched. They are also loners who are better living on their own. They require very little human contact and are happier to spend the evening at home studying or doing work on the computer rather than going out with friends.Obviously many of them are not suited to marriage. I think it is a shonda that many people with Schizophrenia are sent on shidduchim and married off to unsuspecting people who don't find out about the illness until after the khuppah. There is so much pressure to marry, that many people who shouldn't marry are going on shidduchim. People feel they must marry or they are not frum and are so anxious to marry they don't disclose mental health problems etc for fear of rejection. A few weeks into the marraige the truth is discovered and they divorce. This deception is a shonda and is not how Jews should behave. I have Asperger's Syndrome & my doctor (a very frum Jew) has advised me not to marry. Marriage is not for me. Many people worry that I'm lonley but I am not. Just because I am not married and not looking to get married does not make me any less frum then someone who is married with 20 children.Marriage is not for everyone. For people who are able to marry it is a very important mitzvah. I just don't like seeing people pushed into something that they are clearly not fit for because of an illness or past trauma. Not everyone is marriable. It seems the frum community has some hang up about single people.

(2)
Anonymous,
June 24, 2007 2:00 PM

Push into marriage

As the modern orthodox grandmother of several frum granddaughters I am concerned with the mindset of the teachers and parents and often the entire community that says marriage is more important than education and bearing children and raising a Jewish family is the most important what you should be centered on accomplishing. I see girls leaving seminary only one year out of high school and getting panic striken because they must start looking for a shidduch. Was the frum community always this way? I don't see the girls being allowed to mature in any way. Not everyone is ready to be a wife, mother, and often the bread winner when they are 18 or 19 years old. And what about the girls who have the will and determination and brains to become doctors or lawyers or accountants? Doesn't anyone encourage them to reach these goals? I feel worried and frustrated because I sometimes believe the girls think they must get married immediately after high school or seminary because what else is there to do! I do want my granddaughters ( the frum and the non-frum!) to be happily married - I am and my children are. I just don't want them to be pushed into it by circumstances before they fully understand the commitment and life they are embracing.

(1)
Joel Dubow,
June 24, 2007 12:59 PM

This isn't your parents marriage

Marriage today is a contract with the state that has few operative terms and virtually no termination clauses. Women and, in particular men, face uncertainties regarding their childen, their fortunes and their reputations that are in the hands of strangers-people whose priorities are careerist and political. Back in the day marriage involved a community and its course was set by family, friends and Rabbis sympathetic to the couple and its children, and more predictable too. Modern day marriage is in reality family law. Family law is system that has few defenders and many chronicalers of its disastrous self-serving and arbitrary rule. It's results are equivalent to a pogrom on the middle class.

Either we bring religion and community back into family law or bring marriage out of family law. The empirical data I've seen indicates that the latter, through various contractual agreements, is the favored path. Thus marriage advice, if there is an interest in children and propagation of the race, needs to include explaining options other than the dreaded family law that will allow people reasonable predictability and control of their lives in good times and bad.

I've been striving to get more into spirituality. But it seems that every time I make some progress, I find myself slipping right back to where I started. I'm getting discouraged and feel like a failure. Can you help?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Spiritual slumps are a natural part of spiritual growth. There is a cycle that people go through when at times they feel closer to God and at times more distant. In the words of the Kabbalists, it is "two steps forward and one step back." So although you feel you are slipping, know that this is a natural process. The main thing is to look at your overall progress (over months or years) and be able to see how far you've come!

This is actually God's ingenious way of motivating us further. The sages compare this to teaching a baby how to walk. When the parent is holding on, the baby shrieks with delight and is under the illusion that he knows how to walk. Yet suddenly, when the parent lets go, the child panics, wobbles and may even fall.

At such times when we feel spiritually "down," that is often because God is letting go, giving us the great gift of independence. In some ways, these are the times when we can actually grow the most. For if we can move ourselves just a little bit forward, we truly acquire a level of sanctity that is ours forever.

Here is a practical tool to help pull you out of the doldrums. The Sefer HaChinuch speaks about a great principle in spiritual growth: "The external awakens the internal." This means that although we may not experience immediate feelings of closeness to God, eventually, by continuing to conduct ourselves in such a manner, this physical behavior will have an impact on our spiritual selves and will help us succeed. (A similar idea is discussed by psychologists who say: "Smile and you will feel happy.")

That is the power of Torah commandments. Even if we may not feel like giving charity or praying at this particular moment, by having a "mitzvah" obligation to do so, we are in a framework to become inspired. At that point we can infuse that act of charity or prayer with all the meaning and lift it can provide. But if we'd wait until being inspired, we might be waiting a very long time.

May the Almighty bless you with the clarity to see your progress, and may you do so with joy.

In 1940, a boatload 1,600 Jewish immigrants fleeing Hitler's ovens was denied entry into the port of Haifa; the British deported them to the island of Mauritius. At the time, the British had acceded to Arab demands and restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine. The urgent plight of European Jewry generated an "illegal" immigration movement, but the British were vigilant in denying entry. Some ships, such as the Struma, sunk and their hundreds of passengers killed.

If you seize too much, you are left with nothing. If you take less, you may retain it (Rosh Hashanah 4b).

Sometimes our appetites are insatiable; more accurately, we act as though they were insatiable. The Midrash states that a person may never be satisfied. "If he has one hundred, he wants two hundred. If he gets two hundred, he wants four hundred" (Koheles Rabbah 1:34). How often have we seen people whose insatiable desire for material wealth resulted in their losing everything, much like the gambler whose constant urge to win results in total loss.

People's bodies are finite, and their actual needs are limited. The endless pursuit for more wealth than they can use is nothing more than an elusive belief that they can live forever (Psalms 49:10).

The one part of us which is indeed infinite is our neshamah (soul), which, being of Divine origin, can crave and achieve infinity and eternity, and such craving is characteristic of spiritual growth.

How strange that we tend to give the body much more than it can possibly handle, and the neshamah so much less than it needs!